The Cursed Forest (2019)

I enjoyed this game a great deal! It is beautiful and has a delightful mysterious atmosphere, as well as great attention to detail. It maintained a creepy vibe all the way through (with some extremely silly moments in-between :), and held the mood with fitting music. Nice handdrawn paintings framed the story. Major compliments to the creators for managing to weave together such a neat story such that I always felt lost, yet missed almost nothing of the game. The player guidance is nothing short of superb! And I'm glad to see the Hedgehog is still counting stars with the Bear, with juniper berries under the samovar!

visually stunning. good game

I definitely liked the depressing atmosphere, the graphics and attention to detail - it was fun exploring the cursed forest from start to finish! Thank you for this wonderful little game!

When you boil it right down this is essentially a walking simulator with jump scares. But perhaps that's a little unfair. The environment is detailed; the sound-effects are good; and the the ambiance is genuinely creepy. There is an intriguing story line - even though at times it's difficult to follow; there are things to do, and things to find and collect. But there are no 'puzzles' as such; you just walk until you find everything you need to. You will die a few times, but save-points are reasonably frequent, so it doesn't become too frustrating. Whilst detailed, I found the graphics very dark to the point it was often difficult to see where you're going. I get that this is probably intentional to raise the creep-factor, but perhaps a torch mechanic would have been good? I played at high settings on a Core i7, but the game seems to be quite resource hungry as the CPU fan in my PC was whirring its little heart out most of the time whilst playing. Overall, I'd give this a 7/10.

Finished my play-through of this on my Youtube channel several days ago (link at end of review for anyone who wants to see a gameplay sample before buying), so here are some thoughts. This is a short horror game that you'll likely beat in about 4-6 hours. The gameplay essentially consists of exploring the cursed forest after which the game is named, finding items you need as well as notes that gradually reveal the underlying story. So nothing particularly special there, but if you're into that kind of more sedate, slow-burner type of gameplay, then this won't be an issue for you. The game's biggest strengths are definitely it's visuals and atmosphere, complemented by a decent sound design. The forest itself is gloomy and dark, so the setting works well with the story that the game tells. Whilst there are occasional traps and threats to watch out for, there's no chase sequences where you'll be running for your (player character's) life. There are occasional jump-scares, but nothing huge or obnoxious. Most of the puzzles you'll encounter are fairly easy to solve, though there was one puzzle in chapter 1 with a slightly convoluted solution that could benefit from reworking. Namely,…

A decent horror game with a good atmosphere and the underrated CryEngine in all its beautiful glory. It's one of those Russian indie walking simulator horror games, but actually well-made. It's not inherently scary, although it does have some unsettling moments but if you pay attention to the notes and lore even the story is interesting. I give it a solid B.